II. N. Copyrighted Materials

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Investigations have shown that vast numbers of school districts are violating copyright laws every day. Further investigation has shown that most school personnel do not wish to violate the law, and where it was being done it was usually without the knowledge or sanction of top administration.

The law makes it illegal for anyone to duplicate copyrighted materials whether they before audio, visual or printed form. Severe penalties are provided for unauthorized copying outside the bounds of "fair use". The fact that copied material is for school use does not legalize the act of copying copyrighted material.

Therefore, no copyrighted material shall hereafter be duplicated outside the bounds of "fair use", as set forth by the West Warwick School Department guidelines concerning "fair use" below:

1. The purpose and character of the use:

a. The use must be for such purposes as teaching and scholarship.

b. The use must be non-profit.

c. Fair use would probably allow teachers acting on their own to copy small portions of a work for the classroom, but would not allow a school system or a district to do so.

2. The nature of the copyrighted work:

a. Copying portions of a news article may fall under fair use.

b. Copying from a work book designed for a course of study would not fall under fair use.

3. The amount and Substantiality of the portion used:

a. Copying the whole of a work cannot be considered fair use.

b. Copying a small portion may be considered fair use. However, extracting a short sequence from a 16 mm film may be far different than a short excerpt from a textbook because two or three minutes of a 20 minute film might be the very essence of that production, and thus outside fair use.

c. Under normal circumstances, extracting small amounts out of an entire work will be fair use, but a quantitative test alone does not suffice.

4. The effect of the use upon the potential market or value of the copyrighted work:

a. If resulting economic loss to the copyright holder can be shown, even making a single copy of certain materials is an infringement.

b. The making of multiple copies is an infringement which presents the danger of substantial penalties.

When making a decision to copy or not copy, one must take all of the above into consideration. In order to copy, all of the above criteria must be met, not just one or two of the above.

Policy adopted: 7/8/78